


Break of Dawn

by FukaiFox



Series: Not Just Tools - Detroit: Become Human Pokémon AU [7]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Child Abuse, Father-Daughter Relationship, Father-Son Relationship, Other, Parent Death, Parent-Child Relationship, Polyamorous Jericho Members (Detroit: Become Human), So many OCs, Suicide
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-04
Updated: 2020-12-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:40:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,813
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27871701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FukaiFox/pseuds/FukaiFox
Summary: Connor finds and rescues a YK300 model from a crime scene. Traumatized and looking for a new parental figure, of course she latches onto the first person who shows her kindness.Alt. title - Connor: Become Dad
Relationships: Connor & Jericho Members (Detroit: Become Human), Connor & OC, Connor/Josh/Markus/North/Simon (Detroit: Become Human), Hank Anderson & Connor, OC Relationships
Series: Not Just Tools - Detroit: Become Human Pokémon AU [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1474826
Kudos: 14





	Break of Dawn

**Author's Note:**

> this takes place/starts during chapter 20 of Made for More, one of the in-between cases after Connor's recovery from the Cyber attack

“Aw, hell,” Hank groans when they arrive on the scene. It’s already a media circus, reporters and photographers bunching around the entrance to the house. When they got the call for the case, the codes were 1305, 900, and 907. Domestic assault, murder, and suicide.

As they step out fo the car, rain lightly sprinkling and dampening them, their shoes splash the slowly-gathering puddles. Pierro jumps down from the car as well before Connor shuts and door and Hank releases Lance from his ball to assist with crowd control, the Samurott joining the other large Pokémon, the Arcanine, Granbull, and Machamp. Pierro’s ears swivel around as he listens to the surrounding commotion. Reporters jump in and crowd in front of Hank and Connor to try and ask them questions that they dodge and given vague answers to. They aren’t confirming anything, an official press release will be reported later when they have more details, and that they need to return to behind the police line and let them do their jobs. They continued to take their pictures and give Pierro a few strange looks, but it isn’t anything he’s not used to.  
As they walk into the yard, Chris looks up from his tablet.  
“Hank, Connor! Good, you’re here.”  
“What’s this about, Chris?” Hank asks. “You know Connor and I are mostly android crimes.”  
The other man sighs and gestures with his head.  
“Walk and talk, you two.”

Entering the house, Chris begins the briefing.  
“Coroner’s still working on it, but it looks like a domestic assault gone…really south. Looks like he killed his wife then shot himself. There are childrens’ toys and a bedroom too.”  
“…so what’s the android involvement?”  
“The kid’s an android. Found Thirium in a fridge in the basement, but no child snacks or small dishes, and the vics are both humans.” Chris says.   
Hank sighs heavily and Connor frowns. Nobody handles the cases involving children well, least of all Hank. Gavin struggles with them as well.  
“…the kid,” Hank starts, “are they, uh…”  
Chris shakes his head.  
“Thankfully, no. Well, no body was found, anyway. We talked to the neighbors and they said she sometimes goes to the grandparents when it gets particularly bad. They’ve seen the mother, uh, Karliah, stuffing her into an auto cab at late hours.”  
Connor tilts his head.  
“The neighbors were aware of the abuse? Did they ever report it?”  
Chris shakes his head as they make their way past the kitchen and into the living room where the bodies of Karliah and Heath Wise lay covered with white sheets.  
“Nah. They said they tried talking to Karliah about it once, but she begged them not to. She said it would make it worse. That’s actually pretty common in domestic abuse cases, Connor. I guess Heath made it pretty clear he wasn’t to be stood up to. According to the neighbors, she was terrified of him."  
Hank nods and lets out a slow breath as he looks around the scene.  
“You talk to the grandparents yet, see if the kid’s with 'em?”  
“No,” Chris says, “we’ve yet to make contact, but we’ll let you know. You, uh, have a look around. I gotta…,” Chris gestures to the door with his thumb.  
Hank and Connor both nod and watch him go. As a relatively new father, cases involving family violence are starting to bother Chris more and more and it’s hard for him not to get overly emotional about them. Too involved.

Pierro sniffs around while Hank and Connor investigate. CSI has marked points of interest, including the blood splatter on the coffee table in the living room, broken beer bottles, upturned dining room chairs. Connor kneels down and lifts the sheet from Karliah’s face, doing a scan. He can confirm without the coroner that the cause of death was the trauma to her temple from hitting the corner of the coffee table. With a silent goodbye, Connor covers her face again before moving to the other body. The husband, Health, is a gruesome mess. Gunshot entry wound under the jaw is the cause of death, and his finger brings are the only ones on the gun that was found with his body. Connor covers his body as well and stands, looking to Ben who is taking down notes.

“Where did they find his body?”  
Ben looks up from his tablet.  
“Kid’s room. Slimy bastard shot himself sittin’ on her bed, looks like.”  
Connor takes in a shaky breath and follows the yellow markers left by CSI. The markers finally end their trail in the bedroom of a child. Their daughter. The walls are white.  
They _were_ white.  
Blood-splatter on the floor, bed, walls, and ceiling. The purple comforter on the bed is stained as well as the white carpet, and so are many of the small plush toys sitting near her flower-printed pillow.  
Connor turns as he hears a sigh from the doorway behind him and sees Hank leaning against the doorjamb before silently leaving.  
“Hank—,”  
“I’ll be fine. Just— Not here, Con. You, uh—,”  
“I can handle this room. Go on, I’ll be alright. I’ll return to you if I find something.”  
Hank nods and leaves the room, looking pale. Connor looks around the room, taking stock of the decorations locked over onto the floor. The door was kicked in, a lamp on the bedside table is knocked over, various knickknacks and plush toys are on the floor in a manner that leads Connor to believe they were knocked from the dresser that is bare of any such decoration. The vanity-mirror on the dresser is smashed, too.  
His LED flickers as he starts up his reconstruction software, watching with rapt attention as wireframe models of Karliah and Heath struggle in the room. He watches Heath kick the door in, clearing the dresser of its decorations, punching the mirror. He’s three steps in before another model grabs onto his arm. Connor follows it outside the room and watches as Karliah desperately tries to pull Heath out of the child’s bedroom.

She was protecting her daughter.

She was here, then.

The simulation ends with Heath’s wireframe model shoving his wife, her falling to the ground after slamming into the table, then walking to the child’s bedroom and ending his life.  
Connor blinks a few times as the software closes. He turns to face Officer Wilson.  
“Heath was looking for their daughter. Are we sure she wasn’t home? It doesn’t make sense he’d go looking if she wasn’t.”  
Wilson shakes his head.  
“We haven’t seen any sign of her. You seen all these bottles, Connor? Drunk bastard probably thought she was home.”  
Connor frowns.  
“Then why would Karliah try to stop him?”  
That makes the other officer stop, eyebrows drawing together in confusion. Connor’s LED flashes yellow. Something isn’t lining up.

“Pikachu!” Pierro calls for the floor, tugging on the ankles of Connor’s jeans. He kneels.  
“Did you find something?”  
_“Pi!”_ Pierro exclaims with a nod, tugging more insistently. _“Pikachu!”_  
He leads Connor back to the child’s bedroom. Pierro is careful to avoid the blood splatter as he sits in front of the bed, then points to it.  
The bed? Connor tilts his head. Pierro points again, specifically at the floor.  
The floor in front of the bed?

…

Under the bed.

Connor wirelessly connects to the radios the other f\officers outside have on their belts.

_“I’ve located the child, she’s hiding under her bed. Nobody come in, I’m going to attempt to draw her out. I don’t want her overwhelmed. Requesting a bus on standby.”_

Connor kneels down as Pierro crawls under the bed, chittering softly, calmly, to the little girl hiding beneath. Connor can hear her quiet sniffles and shaky breaths. After a few moments, Pierro comes back out.  
“Is she alright?”  
Pierro shakes his head, revealing his claws and dragging them lightly across Connor’s knee.  
“Is she bleeding?”  
A nod.  
“Anything else?”  
The Pikachu rubs his little fists under his eyes. Yes, Connor can hear that she’s crying. She must be so scared, so traumatized. If she was hiding under here when…  
Connor takes a quick scan around the room and spots a notebook with the name DAWN scribbled on the front in a child’s handwriting. He clears his throat and takes a deep breath. 

“…Dawn? Is that your name?” He asks. “It’s very pretty. It means sunrise, you know? My name is Connor, it means ‘lover of dogs,’.” I suppose that’s true, I do adore my partner’s Stoutland.”  
The child whimpers. Pierro drops his ears sadly and crawls back under the bed.  
“I’m a police officer, Dawn, and I’m here to help you. I’m not going to hurt you, I promise.” He assures. “That’s my Pikachu under there, actually.”  
A chirp from Pierro.  
“His name is Pierro, he’s my partner.”  
Connor doesn’t get a response.  
“…do you want to see my badge?”  
He unclips it from his belt and slides it under the bed, and just for a moment, he can feel their fingers brush. Dawn is quick to jerk her hand away, clutching the badge in her tiny hands. Connor can hear her running her fingers over it, nails scraping the brass. He hears Pierro chitter again.  
“He told me that you’re hurt, is that true? I have a friend outside who can make it better. She’s an EMT. Do you know what that is? She’s like a doctor that rides in an ambulance.”

A sniffle and the sound of movement. Connor slides his hand under the bed again, but not to try to touch her or even take the badge back. Instead, he draws back the skin on his hand.  
“…I’m an android, too. See? I even have my LED in. If you come out, you can see it, we’ll get you a bandage and some Thirium for your injury. Then…Then I can take you away from here so you don’t have to hide anymore. You’ll be safe with me, with us.”

After a few long minutes, Pierro finally crawls back out, lifting the comforter from where it reaches the floor, and chitters quietly to encourage the small chat that soon follows after. It’s a YK300 with tan skin and bright honey-gold eyes, with dark brown curly hair styled in a shoulder-length bob. There’s a scrape across her left knee that’s stained her denim overalls with blue blood. She doesn’t appear physically damaged in any other way. She sniffles and immediately crawls into Connor’s lap, to which he responds by wrapping his arms around her tight and keeping her gaze hidden from the blood splattering her bedroom. He doesn’t pick her up right away, for now just cradling her close and letting her know a kind touch as he runs his fingers through her soft hair. She isn’t crying, but from what he saw of her face before she climbed into his lap, she had been. She had likely depleted her saline reserves.  
“Will you let my friend see you? She’ll bandage up your knee, and then we can go somewhere else, somewhere safe for you?”  
A tiny nod and Dawn lifts her arms to wrap around his shoulders. Connor slides his arms under her thighs and slowly stands, holding her tight.

_“I’m coming out with her. She is injured and currently mute. Do not interact.”_

Connor carries her out of the bedroom and out of the house entirely. Reporters and photographers clamber over each other trying to speak to them, but Lance quickly jumps in front of them with a menacing growl which is enough to make them back off entirely, but Pierro jumping on him and balancing on his horn as he sparks his cheeks certainly doesn’t hurt either. An ambulance has entered the scene and Connor carries her to it, setting her down gently on the floor of it. She lets go of him reluctantly and looks up at him, then to the EMT who approaches next. It’s another android, an MP700 with dark brown skin and hair tied it small orderly Bantu knots, golden cuffs adorning some of the strands.  
“Hi,” she greets, “you must be Dawn. My name is Lanai, I’m gonna bandage you up and give you some Thirium to drink, okay? Drink as much as you can.”  
Dawn doesn't respond, just drops her eyes. Connor keeps his word and stays right at her side while Lanai hands dawn a pouch of Thirium to drink before rolling up the left leg of her overalls, getting to work on cleaning the wound and bandaging it. Connor holds her free hand while Pierro carefully climbs into her lap and letting himself be snuggled and held as if he were a plush toy. That thought has Connor tapping the Pokémon on the tail.  
_“Pi?”_  
“Go back inside to her bedroom, see if you can find a stuffed toy that won’t have to be…evidence.”  
Pierro nods and gets up, giving Dawn a little lick to her check before jumping down and running back into the house. Connor smiles and slowly strokes Dawn’s hair.  
“He’ll be right back with one of your toys. You can keep it with you, nobody is going to take it.”  
Dawn’s eyes glance at Connor for a moment before dropping back down to her lap as she continues sucking down her Thirium with little enthusiasm. Lanai finishes up soon after, pulling a little blue lollipop from her paramedic jacket pocket and holding it out for her.  
“And we’re all done! Here, this is for you as thanks for being such a good patient. It’s blue-raspberry flavored Thirium.”  
Lanai takes her leave with Connor’s thanks and the RK800 sighs, looking down at the little girl at his side.  
“…we’ve contacted your grandparents and told them what happened. You and I are going to go back to the precinct for a little while to wait for them, but until then maybe we can find some paper and markers so we can draw together. Does that sound nice?”  
No movement or words except for a small nod.  
_“Pika! Pika-pi!!”_

Connor and Dawn both look towards the sound to see Pierro walking up to them on his hind legs carrying a plush Pikachu in his arms. He’s doing his best to keep the tail from dragging the sodden ground. For the first time, Connor sees the barest hint of a smile on Dawn’s face as he takes the plush from Pierro and hands it to her. There’s no blood on it, thankfully. The thing is well-loved, limp in places where the stuffing has gone thin from many a hug. She clutches it tightly in her arms and sucks down the Thirium a little faster.  
When she’s finished, and with her permission, Connor lifts her into his arms again and carries her to a squad car, placing her in the backseat and buckling her in. When he stands and closes the door, Hank is coming up behind him. Connor frowns as the older man looks through the window at the small child. Dawn is a YK300 model android, designed to appear six years of age.

“Hank, I…,”  
“Is she alright?”  
Connor sighs.  
“Physically. Emotionally, mentally… I don’t think so. She won’t speak. I believe the trauma, has rendered her mute. I’m going to take her to the precinct and see if my friend in Special Victims can get her to speak, perhaps get her side of things and properly evaluate her mental state. When that’s finished…I’ll try to take her to New Jericho for temporary custody while we await contact from her grandparents.”  
Connor looks at Dawn through the window and frowns. She’s crying again, hiding her face in her plush toy while Pierro simply sits beside her and leans his fluffy body against her.

  
— — —

At the precinct, Dawn is in an interrogation room designed for child victims. It’s one big playroom with soft carpeting, small furniture, toys of all kinds, and a large window for observers to look through that appears to only be a mirror on the other side where Dawn is sitting with another android with curly black hair, Sienna skin, and friendly brown eyes. He has a Xatu at his side.  
He’s a psychiatrist named Jay, and he’s sitting at the small table with a bunch of crayons and some paper, scribbling away with Jay speaks with her. Connor is currently watching them from observation while she draws.

“Are you feeling alright, Dawn?” He asks. Dawn glances up at him before returning her focus to her drawing, stopping only to grab a yellow crayon. “Can you tell me what happened?”  
Again, she doesn’t answer. Connor honestly isn’t expecting her to. This is less to get a story and more to see how she’s fairing mentally. Jay switches topics.  
“That’s a nice drawing. Can I see it?”  
Dawn stops for a moment, thinking about it before she pulls her arms away and slides the paper in Jay’s direction. The man smiles.  
“Oh, very nice. Is that the officer who found you?”  
Dawn nods and takes the drawing back, continuing to scribble and color her drawing.  
“You’re a very talented artist, Dawn. Could you draw something for me? Can you draw what you saw today?”  
She stops again and sighs, frowning deeply. It’s obvious she doesn’t want to, but it will be helpful if she does.

_“Don’t push her too hard, Jay.”_

_“I’m not. I’m trying to find common ground. If she can’t or won’t speak, then maybe she can communicate this way. If she won’t draw, I won’t force her to.”_

Dawn grabs a few new pieces of paper and gets to work. She draws…everything. Her father angry, yelling, her mother on the floor with red blood coming from her head, her father frowning with a. Gun in his hand. She really had seen it all from her hiding place under the bed.  
As Jay looks over the drawings, he frowns. Dawn begins to cry again, undoubtedly reliving all of it.  
“I’m sorry, Dawn, I’m so sorry… Do you want Connor back? I’m sure he’d love to come to see you again.”  
Dawn nods quickly and Jay stands, collecting her drawings of the crime scene and leaving the room. Outside, Connor sighs as Jay shows them to him.  
“She’s definitely traumatized. She saw all of it. Your assessment of her was correct, Connor. She’s mute, though perhaps only selectively. She…trusts you. Maybe you will be someone she feels safe and comfortable enough around to speak to.” Jay says.  
Connor nods and looks through the window where he sees Dawn crying into her plush again.  
When he enters the room, Pierro walks in behind him. He approaches slowly and takes a seat beside her on the floor, Pierro jumping up on the small table. She clambers into his lap and he holds her tight, just as before. She continues to sob as he just rocks her back and forth. He doesn’t shush her, doesn't try to reassure her that everything is or will be okay. She needs to just cry right now and let it all out. She’s terrified and heartbroken.  
She stops after a while, thoroughly exhausted, and just rests against Connor’s chest to listen to his heartbeat. She glances over at Pierro standing on the table and reaches out to pet him, the Pikachu leaning into her palm with a soft coo. She stares for a moment before taking her hand away and pressing at the bright red cheeks of her toy.  
“…what happened to him?” She asks quietly.

Her first words to anyone.

Connor smiles fondly.

“When Pierro was a little baby, I saved him.” He says, pulling up a picture on his palm of a little Pichu. “There were very bad people doing very bad things to him, so I took him away from them and gave him a better life with me. What they did to him made him…different.” Connor explains, putting the picture away and scratching Pierro’s chin. “Very different. It made his fur stand up like that and it made his eyes and cheeks and all his other markings blue. When I found him, he didn’t trust anybody except for me. He was so scared all the time that someone was going to hurt him, but he learned to trust other people and Pokémon again with the help of me and my friends. Then, one day not too long ago actually…” Connor takes a deep breath. “He saved my life too. I had been found by some bad people who wanted to hurt me, but Pierro found me, and he saved me. When I woke up a few weeks later, I saw he had evolved.”  
_“Pikaaa…”_ Pierro purrs as he leans into Connor’s scratching fingers, foot tapping on the table in bliss. Dawn smiles a little bit, then looks down.  
“…I had a Pokémon too,” she says.  
Connor tilts his head. There’s a past tense there.  
“You did? What did you have?”  
Dawn sighs and rubs her eyes.  
“A Rattata. I hid it in my room because it wasn’t allowed, but Daddy found it and… I was in a lot of trouble. He took it away. I never saw it again and Mommy wouldn’t tell me what happened. I think he killed it…”

Pierro’s ears flick straight up in alarm as Connor’s LED flashes red.  
“Oh, Dawn, I… I’m so sorry. Can you…tell me what other things your daddy did? Was he always mean like that?”

On the other side of the mirror, Hank is watching. He’d never really seen Connor interact with children before. Sure, he’d met Damien, Chris’s son, and the tykes at New Jericho who liked to make Connor put stuff in his mouth and tell them what it was made of or climb his gangly limbs like a tree, but never an interaction like this. There was nothing playful about this.

Dawn sniffles and nods, wiping her eyes with her sleeves and leaning further into Connor’s chest.  
“Yeah. He would always drink from the smelly bottles and get really mad and yell a lot for no reason. He would yell at me or— or mommy a lot and he’d throw things and break stuff. Sometimes he—,” She hiccups and tucks her face away to hide, “he would h-hit me or mommy, but— but mostly mommy… She would always protect me when he started hurting me.”

When she begins to cry again, Connor cradles her close just like before, back at the house, and strokes her hair as he rocks back and forth. The girl had been through so much and yet nobody had noticed. Or at the very least, nobody had cared. The neighbors said they tried to hope but Karliah begged them not to. Connor wonders if the grandparents knew, but then again physical abuse towards an android was harder to spot since they self-healed.  
Pierro hops down from the table and curls up in Dawn’s lap, letting her pet and hold him until she’s calmed down again. She just runs her fingers through his dense fur.  
“…maybe it’s my fault.” She says. “Maybe I did something wrong, or—,”  
“No,” Connor interrupts sternly. “No, Dawn, You didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t deserve what happened to you. I promise none of this was your fault.”  
Dawn frowns.  
“Then…then why was he so mad at me all the time?”

The million-dollar question in any abuse case: _Why?_

All Connor can do is be honest with her.

“…I don’t know, but I do know that it wasn’t your fault. Your father was in control of his own actions, it’s nothing you made him do.”

Dawn fidgets with her fingers, twisting them in Pierro’s fur. Connor decides to change the subject. It will take some time for Dawn to come to terms with what’s happened to her and realize it wasn’t her fault, if she ever truly does. Even Connor harbors guilt and regret for the things he had no control over.

“Can you tell me about your grandparents? Your neighbor told us you go to visit them a lot.”  
Dawn nods.  
“Uh-huh. Mommy would put me in a taxi to them sometimes in the middle of the night when daddy got really mean, but he always came to pick me up a few days later.”  
“…did they know what your dad was doing?”  
The girl shrugs.  
“I dunno. Probably. They aren’t mean to me, but I don’t think they…liked me? I think they wanted my mommy to have a real baby, but she couldn’t. Mommy told me about it when I asked if I’d ever have a little brother or sister. I don’t think gramma and grampa could really take care of me though. They forgot about me sometimes because I don’t need food or water like other kids. I played with their Pokémon most of the time, she’s a really big fluffy Furfrou. She would sleep with me at night and play with me during the day when I was there so gramma and grampa could do their chores or go to town.” She explains.  
Connor hums. Well, not the most ideal environment for a child full-time…

“I see. Well, would you want to stay with them now?”

Dawn may be a child when you look at her, but under the New ERA she’s given the same autonomy as an adult android. If she wants to go with her grandparents, she can, as long as they meet the qualifications from a local worker that their home is adequate for a child.   
However, she could also choose not to go with them. She could live in New Jericho under their protective custody until she’s either adopted, or chooses to simply remain there and reside among her people.   
In response to Connor’s question, Dawn deflates.  
“…is it bad that I don’t think I want to? I know they care about me, but I’m not…you know. A real kid. I think it’s because I can’t grow up. They think I’m weird.”  
“It’s alright, Dawn, you don’t have to,” Connor assures.   
She looks up.  
“…I don’t? But where would I go?”  
Connor smiles and tucks her hair behind her ear.  
“You could go to New Jericho if you wanted to.”  
“New Jericho? That’s where all the other androids are, right?”  
He nods.  
“It’s where a large amount of them live, yes. I have many friends there, and one of them runs a special place for kids just like you where they all live and play together.”  
“…are there Pokémon?” She asks shyly as if afraid she’d be in trouble just for asking. Connor nods and adjusts her in his lap so they can look at each other.  
“There are so many Pokémon there, Dawn. Some even without trainers, so another friend of mine runs a daycare for them as well. Mostly the babies, but they’re all free to roam.”  
Dawn looks up at Connor curiously with contemplative eyes before looking down at her hands.  
“…can I see?” She asks, lifting one hand and drawing back the tan skin there. Connor smiles at her and gently takes her hand in his own as he sheds his own human aesthetic up to the elbow, their connection glowing a bright neon blue as their bare hands touch.

Connor’s LED flashes and flickers blue as he shows her his memories of New Jericho, of its homeliness and warmth, a stark contrast to the clinically white lights and cold corporate atmosphere of the building’s original design. It’s full of smiling faces and Pokémon. A nurses, a day-care, a medical wing like an actual hospital, and floors 17 through 42 are all offices made into suites and dorms for the androids residing in New Jericho to make apartments out of. The practice arenas where people train and battle their Pokémon. He shows her Markus, Simon, North, and Josh. Their smiling faces, laughing all together.

But interfacing and memory sharing goes both ways, so he sees snippets of her memory as well. He tries not to physically jolt where a hand strikes his face, when a foot catches his ankle and causes him to trip, where a sudden shove to his back slams him face-first into a wall that smears Thirium from a newly-broken nose. There’s loud yelling, not all of it directed at him. Pain in his leg. The sound of breaking glass, more shouting, a door being kicked in, more shouting, a loud thud, silence, a gunshot. His LED is strobing red.  
Dawn suddenly snatches her hand away like she’s been burned, looking up at Connor with wide, fearful eyes brimming with tears.  
“I’m sorry!” She exclaims, holding her hand close to her chest.  
Connor shakes his head quickly.  
“It’s okay, it’s okay—,” he shushes quietly. “I know you didn’t mean to. You can’t always control what someone sees. It’s alright Dawn, I’m not mad.”  
Dawn rubs her teary eyes and sniffles, and even Pierro stands on his back legs and wipes her cheeks with a little coo.  
“Can I—,” she hiccups on a short sob, “can I go there? To New Jericho?”  
Connor nods with a little smile, stroking her hair back.  
“Of course you can. I’ll take you there myself.” He says.  
“I just... I just wanna see it for myself. I dunno if I wanna stay with gramma and grampa, but I dunno if I wanna be at New Jericho either. I’ll decide when I get there.”  
“There’s no rush,” Connor tells her. “You can stay there for a few days while we process your case, and if you don’t like it then your grandparents can take you instead. Does that sound fair?”  
Granted, of course, that Dawn’s grandparents even wanted to keep her.

Dawn stands from his lap and grabs onto her Pikachu plush to hold while she waits for Connor to join her. The detective stands as well but stops for a moment, kneeling down to pick up the drawing she’d set aside earlier. It’s him and Pierro, spiky blue fur and all.  
“Dawn? May I keep this?”  
The child nods.  
“Uh-huh. I was gonna give it to you anyway.”  
Connor smiles and takes it.  
“Thank you very much. I’ll keep it at my desk.” He says as he picks her up again and holds her, letting her lean on his chest for support as she holds her stuffed toy in one hand and sucks her thumb on the other. Pierro is following close behind, smiling up at her as she looks up and around the precinct.   
Hank is no longer outside the glass watching, having needed to pull himself away. There was only so much he could take, and watching this poor little girl sob her traumata into Connor’s chest as he cradles her was far above his threshold.   
Connor smiles as he sets her down in his desk chair, kneeling down on the floor in front of her.  
“Okay, Dawn, I have to go talk to my captain real quick about me taking you to New Jericho.” He points to Fowler’s fishbowl office. “You’ll be able to see me the whole time, but Pierro is going to stay here with you just in case you need me. Just let him know and he’ll come get me, alright?”  
Pierro salutes with a chirp and he sets himself down on Connor’s desk. The android grabs his Android Division jacket from the back of his chair and drapes it over the girl’s shoulders and it makes him feel good to make her smile, even just for a moment. He sets the drawing down as well. Dawn pulls the jacket close around her as she watches Connor walk away and up the stairs into Fowler’s office. She takes the time to really take in her surroundings as she spins around in the chair. A police station is a lot more business-y than she thought it would be. She looks around the things on Connor’s desk, smiling at the little decorations. There’s a picture beside the computer of him and the older human she had seen him talking to earlier along with a Crobat and a Sylveon standing in front of some rundown food truck. There’s a Pikachu-shaped sticky note stuck to the corner that says _**“Congrats on your freedom, Connor!”**_  
The picture must be from the night of or the morning after the revolution. On the other side of the computer is another picture, this one is of Connor and a large group of other androids, four men and one woman. She knows those people — there isn’t a single android alive who doesn’t know who the leaders of Jericho are. In the picture, they’re all squished together close, smiling wide or laughing. 

Nobody really pays her any mind except the officer across the way from Connor’s desk, a man with olive skin and an expression on his face that makes him look angry. She has a feeling nothing is actually wrong, he just looks that way. He has a lot of scars on his face and she wants to touch them and ask what happened even though she knows it’s rude. To be fair though, he’s staring first. He looks like he wants to say something but he won’t. The plaque on his desk reads **DETECTIVE G. REED.**

“Look at you, being civil.” A voice says that sounds remarkably like Connor’s, but just this side of not. It’s too deep, but just enough for there to be a difference. It comes from the android sitting at a partner desk beside the human, and if she thought his voice was similar to Connor’s then his face is really something else. He’s almost identical except his hair is black and his eyes are blue. His ears are pierced too, with little black titanium studs. She didn’t know androids could pierce themselves like that. The plaque says **DETECTIVE R. RK900**. The human, Detective Reed, scoffs and rolls his eyes.  
“It’s a fuckin’ kid, Richie. I’m an asshole, alright, but not enough that I’m gonna be a dick to a child. Ankle biter’s been through enough as it is.”  
“Indeed, she has.” The other android says.  
He gets up from his chair and approaches her, kneeling down to her level near the chair just like Connor had done. He’s accompanied by a Houndoom.  
“Hello, little one. My name is Richard, I’m Connor’s brother.”  
“…”  
“…you can’t speak?”  
She shakes her head.  
“You can speak?”  
She nods.  
She wants to, but for some reason, she just can’t. She doesn’t know why. It feels like her lips have been glued shut and she feels like even if she could open her mouth nothing would come out. She could talk to Connor just fine, but couldn’t talk to Jay before and can’t talk to Richard now. She whines quietly and thinks of how to speak to him. She searches Connor’s desk for a piece of paper, a tablet, a notepad, a pen, anything she could write with but finds nothing.

“It’s alright,” Richard says. “Perhaps you could tell me this way?”  
He offers her a white hand and she quickly shakes her head. She doesn’t want him to see what she had shown Connor. Richard only nods in understanding.  
“Of course. Well, could you sign it for me?:  
She tilts her head. Signing?  
“Yes,” Richard says with a little smile. “There are some androids who can’t speak to humans, can’t or don’t want to connect to others, or can’t hear, so they use Sign Language to do so instead. My friend Reyn does that because he can’t speak properly, his voice synthesizer is broken, so he signs when he wants to talk.”  
Well, if it’s a way to communicate when she can’t talk, it’s a deal. She nods quickly. Richard orders his hand again.  
“It’s just a download. I promise I won’t go looking.”

He looks trustworthy, even if his eyes make her a little uncomfortable. Plus, he’s Connor’s brother and Pierro doesn’t seem to mind him being nearby. Not like that weird glaring-contest he’s got going on with Detective Reed across the way. Dawn takes his hand and lets the download come through, pulling her hand away immediately after, then she sorts through all the information as it downloads. She smiles and looks up at him once it’s complete.  
She presses her hand to her chest.  
_‘My’_  
She takes bother hands and presses her index and middle fingers together, tucking her others away, the taps them together crossed.  
_‘Name’_  
She spells.  
_‘D-A-W-N’_  
Richard smiles. His smile seems a little different than Connor’s, like it’s something he had to learn instead of being a natural thing, but it’s no less comforting.   
“A lovely name,” he says. He looks up just in time to see Connor leaving Fowler’s office. Dawn turns around and smiles at him and Pierro pulls his eyes away from Gavin, the human scrubbing at the tear-streaks on his cheeks from spending so long not blinking, and chirps happily at his trainer.  
_“Pika!”_  
Connor smiles and tilts his head curiously as he approaches, a careful hand on Dawn’s shoulder that she sees coming.  
“Ah, Dawn, I see you met Nines!”  
Nines? He said his name was Richard. Dawn draws her eyebrows together.  
Richard chuckles.  
“It’s a nickname. I’m an RK900 model, so Connor started calling me Nines before I found my name for myself. It stuck.”  
“Oh please, you told me to always call you that and that I was the only one who could. Don’t lie to her to make yourself seem cool.” Connor teases, reaching over and tousling up Richard’s hair, the RK900 playfully slapping them away and trying to fix his hair.  
Dawn giggles quietly and looks up at Connor, opening her mouth but—  
“…”  
Nothing comes out. She still can’t speak. She tries, but just as she thought, she doesn’t make so much as a hiss of static. She had no problem talking to him before, but there are others around now. She feels her lips trouble and her eyes well with potential tears. 

Richard establishes a wireless connection to Connor.  
_‘I think she has a case of selective mutism caused by her trauma.’ He says. ‘You seem to be an exception, but only when other people aren’t around. I gave her a packet to download for Sign Language to use when she needs it.’_  
Connor nods. He kneels down and gently takes Dawn’s hands in his own to get her attention, smiling when their eyes meet. He points to her before spreading out his fingers and tapping his thumb against his chest.  
_‘You’re fine.’_  
He points to himself, then makes an inward fist, then raises it to his temple and extends his index finger twice.  
_‘I understand.’_  
Dawn makes a fist and sticks her thumb out, flicking it out from under her chin, then doing the same gesture Connor had done with her finger and fist, eyebrows upturned desperately.  
_‘I don’t understand!’_  
Connor frowns a little.  
“It’s called Selective Mutism,” he explains out loud. “It’s caused by anxiety. You’re just stressed, you’ll be okay once you calm down a little. I get that way sometimes too when I get a little too overwhelmed.”  
Dawn looks at him fearfully before slowly nodding her head.  
_‘I want to go to New Jericho now.’_ She signs and Connor nods.  
“We’re going to leave right now, I just had to let my boss know what was going on.”  
The RK800 hoists her up in his arms again when she raises her own again, a silent ask to be carried, and he smiles as he looks to Richard.  
“I’ll be back soon. If Hank returns before I do, let him know where I’ve gone. Still has a bad habit of leaving his phone on silent and not checking it.” He chuckles. Richard nods and shoos them on.  
Over Connor’s shoulder, Dawn waves goodbye to Richard, who waves back. Detective Reed snorts something that makes the smile drop from Richard’s face and he glares at the human, who suddenly turns sheepish and ducks his head at the intensity. Maybe she was right to be scared of him at first.  
Connor buckles Dawn into the backseat of his car where Pierro sits in her lap on his hind legs, the two of them watching the scenery pass by out the window as Connor drives. He checks the rearview every now and then to check on her, but she’s…a little detached from things right now. He doesn’t blame her. He turns up the radio some and smiles when a little bit of life comes back to her eyes as she listens to the lyrics.

_“There's a room where the light won't find you_  
_Holding hands while the walls come tumbling down_  
_When they do I'll be right behind you,”_


End file.
